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If the San Jose Sharks need a bit of good news, a glimmer of hope, there is this: A two-game deficit in a best-of-seven series isn't totally insurmountable.

Just last week, the Los Angeles Kings proved it.

Now, the bad news.

In this case, the Kings are the squad that owns a two-game edge, and the defending Stanley Cup champions don't seem likely to lose four of their next five contests.

With Thursday's 4-3 come-from-behind victory over the Sharks at Staples Center, the Kings grabbed a comfortable lead in this Western Conference semifinal series.

For the Sharks, the worst part is they know they should have escaped with a split.

The out-of-towners scored three unanswered goals and had the lead with less than two minutes remaining Thursday, only to watch their 3-2 lead vanish in a span of 22 seconds late in the third period.

With Brad Stuart and Marc-Edouard Vlasic in the box, Kings captain Dustin Brown banged in a puck from the edge of the blue paint to tie it up with 1:43 remaining.

Vlasic, who had scored the go-ahead goal earlier in the third, was still in the sin-bin when winger Trevor Lewis crashed the net and cashed in Tyler Toffoli's rebound to ensure overtime wasn't necessary.

“We realized it wasn’t our best effort, but sometimes good teams win games when they don’t deserve it, too,” said Kings centre Anze Kopitar, fresh stitches in his upper lip after a shot to the face early in the third period.

“We pulled it out of our behinds this time. Next time, we want to make sure we’re not in a position like this.”

Jeff Carter and Drew Doughty also scored for the Kings, while Stuart, Vlasic and Patrick Marleau responded for the Sharks.

Much to the delight of the 18,527 fans in attendance, the Kings extended their home winning streak to a dozen, including five post-season dates.

The action now shifts to the Silicon Valley for Saturday's Game 3 at HP Pavilion.

Question is, will it shift back?

“I liked our game. We’ll meet (Friday) at the rink and I’ll tell our team that,” said Sharks head coach Todd McLellan. “The thing I like about our team, maybe in the past this would have probably bothered our team a little bit more. But with the group of guys we have, we can recover from this.”

What, specifically, did the Sharks bench boss like about Thursday's effort?

“We got to Jonathan Quick for three goals,” McLellan said. “But when you get three, you better beat this team.”

The Sharks finally solved Quick midway through the second, after 89:47 of frustration — including a 2-0 shutout in Game 1 — and 51 attempts on net.

As it turns out, all they needed was a tic-tac-toe-tap-in, with Dan Boyle dishing to Logan Couture, who zipped a pass to Joe Thornton, who set up Marleau for a re-direction to complete a four-way passing play.

The Sharks struck again less than five minutes later when Stuart snuck a slapshot through traffic to tie it up, then grabbed the lead about nine minutes into the final frame when Vlasic poked a loose puck across the line just before the net was knocked off. After a brief review, it was ruled a good goal.

Instead of answering questions about his go-ahead marker, though, Vlasic stood in the Sharks' locker-room after the game and tried to explain a delay-of-game penalty with 2:19 remaining, when he chipped a shot over the glass. He tried to argue the puck deflected off Carter, but the officials didn't buy it.

Fifty-eight seconds and two goals later, he was set free by Lewis' game-winner.

“We’ll respond,” Vlasic vowed. “I thought we responded well tonight, we played 60 minutes. We should have won that game.”